Â
Item Condition: Used; Very Good
WEST AFRICA has ceased to be a country for photo-
graphers and exoticists. Today it interests political
correspondents and multi-billionaire American companies.
Ver the trend of events in West Africa is only vaguely known to the
harried, average reader of the daily papers. Africa, he feels, is a
long way away-a curious, complex mystery that lies behind an
Ebony Curtain. He sees the headlinesGhana Independence,
French Massing Forces in the Cameroons, Nigeria Constitutional
Conference, Clash in Guinea, Togo Appeals to UN. The reader
senses that all these headlines must be part ofa coherent whole,
but he is never told what it is-or only told in garbled terms.
In about five years' time, at least half of the African population
south of the Sahara (and all, or almost all, of it to the north) will be
independent.
world will have been won back by its inhabitants from those who
helped the inhabitants discover its worth. How did this happen?
Why was it the only course that Africa could take? These are
questions which any reasonably conscientious writer has to answer
foday before he has the right to take his readers to West Africa, for
otherwise he will not just be painting a partly incomprehensible
picture but also a deceiving one.
What is believed to be the richest continent in the
Journeys begin a long time before one turns the key in the lock
and looks for a taxi to take one to the station.
conversation overheard in a restaurant, an accidental glance at a
map-these are the significant starts. Maps, in particular, are
dangerous enchanters.
arly blues, for they make one think not s0 much of places as of
people,
A sleepless night, a
They have something of the quality of the